Imagination is the Mother of Invention

The title is taking license with the real phrase, “necessity is the mother of invention.” We are not big on guests and frankly have turned our guest room into an office/studio. But recently we had a visitor to stay a couple of nights and the only thing we have resembling a bed is a single size air mattress. The guest is not a nimble young person, and I knew I needed to get the mattress off the floor a bit. My imagination went into overdrive.

The week before the visit I morphed into Sherlock Holmes sleuthing around the house in every nook, cranny, and closet for something to put the mattress on to give it some semblance of a “real” bed. I imagined getting some of our decorative bricks from the yard and laying boards across them, I imagined building something resembling a box spring, I imagined laying cushions from the sofa on the floor, I saw some plastic containers that fit under a bed for storage but didn’t have enough of them. Then I looked in the storage closet under the basement stairs. My imagination went wild when I saw four plastic containers and deducted, they would be perfect. I hauled them upstairs, then found some shelving we weren’t using to lay across the plastic containers. Uh oh, the shelving boards were slipping and sliding like hot butter was under them. The imagination kicked in again and I found some non-slip shelving material and used it to place between the boards and plastic and between the boards and the mattress to make everything stable. Next, I put on the mattress, the sheets, and a blanket. To make everything look put together, I put some curtains together to make a “spread” and voilà! a bed was “invented.” Looking at the pictures, you can see it worked and the guest said they slept well.

How does your organization use imagination to create new processes, products, or services? Does your organization allow time and space for imagination? Here are five ideas to help your organization strengthen its imagination muscle.

1. Talk with both your customers and front-line employees. Listen actively to what they have to say. New insights and perspectives will abound.
2. Stop being so busy. Busyness is a block to imagination. Allow time for reflection and daydreaming.
3. Create collaborative sessions between different concentrations. For example, what ideas for products, processes, and services could HR and engineering come up with? How about payroll and marketing or Sales and Accounting?
4. Encourage people to get out of the office to observe what goes on the in “real” world.
5. Take risks. Try new things. Nothing will change and innovation doesn’t happen without pushing the envelope.

So let your imagination go wild and see how many beds of opportunity for innovation you can create. It’s quite elementary. Thank you for reading this blog. If you would like to have a no obligation discussion on imagination Let’s Get Started!